The following comic comes from bikeyface and illustrates a sad truth that many of us* know all too well…

Kids love cycling, and it’s such a shame that there is so little safe space in our cities where people can just pootle around recreationally. Vondelpark in Amsterdam is one of those rare places where people can go just ‘for a spin’.

Vondelpark provides a totally safe environment for kids to ride their bikesRiding your bike in the park on a summer afternoon… Such a simple pleasure that is so unreasonably denied to us in the UK

Like this:

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4 thoughts on “New bike for Christmas? Sorry kid…”

bikingchandlervero said:January 12, 2014 at 3:10 pm

So true! I let my 6yo daughter ride her bike in our neighborhood, not a lot cars go through our neighborhood, but I am constantly a nervous wreck and I am afraid the neighbors are going to call the police and tell them I am the worse mother ever! And I had to buy a cargo bike to go to school even though she is a great cyclist because there is no way I am letting her ride on the bike lanes of busy streets until she’s going to college! Luckily theres a small park in our neighborhood she can ride her bike to when she’s with me, but if she wants to ride in another park she has to get on the cargo bike and then put her bike in it too, along with her two-year-old sister and her bike… its ridiculous really!

Growing up in London I remember being totally confused as a child: on the one hand my parents were keen to provide me a shiny new bike every few years (to this day, probably amongst the biggest/best presents that I’ve ever received), but there was never anywhere appropriate to ride it – the irony was too much to bear!
It must be tough in America, what with the bigger vehicles and more of them. If your daughter rides along with you in the cargo bike then she will hopefully get a good feel for how to stay safe as a cyclist on the roads. What we all really need is something like Utrecht’s Traffic Garden (https://dutchbikeguy.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/utrechts-traffic-garden/). All the best!

There are new rules being proposed for Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park, banning bicycles. If this came as a result of cyclists persistently taking out the pensioners then I’d understand, but it’s clearly not.